Writing and the Internet and My Novel

Evidence of pre-smartphone, pre-social media inability to concentrate.

I had a blog called “reader of depressing books” from 2005 to 2013. I’ve been going through some of it as research for an essay I’m writing titled “How to Write an Essay Collection” for my in-progress essay collection Reasons to Live.

I deleted most of the blog at some point, which I somewhat regret, but I can still see all the posts on Wayback Machine. I found this post I made in 2005. It is evidence of pre-smartphone, pre-social media inability to concentrate.

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7/28/2005

writing and the internet and my novel

i write everyday

i'm been working on my novel

here's a typical 'session' of me working on my novel

1. get coffee and drink half of it

2. check e-mail

3. check some other things

4. check my other e-mail and download the manuscript of my novel

5. get up and go to the bathroom

6. sit back down at the computer

7. check e-mail

8. maximize the manuscript of the novel in microsoft word

9. begin to read it

10. feel a little uninspired

11. check e-mail

12. feel bad that there are no new e-mails

13. think about maximizing the manuscript of the novel in microsoft word

14. think briefly about my future

15. feel a little doomed

16. drink the rest of the coffee

17. look on the internet for something to inspire me

18. google news my favorite authors

19. check e-mail

20. use the bathroom

21. feel a little hungry

22. go outside and buy a banana, and tea

23. eat the banana, drink the tea

24. use the bathroom

25. back at the computer, check my e-mail

26. feel social and good from the coffee and the tea and from having just been outside; answer my e-mails

27. maximize and scroll through my novel, quickly, without actually thinking about or acknowleding it really

28. scroll to the top and begin to read my novel

29. notice that my eyes are unfocusing a little

30. think about other aspects of my life

31. think about my short-story collection

32. focus my eyes

33. stretch my neck

34. stand up and stretch my neck and arms

35. select-all my novel and change the font size to eight and single-space it all, to gain perspective

36. scroll down, quickly, like a game

37. stop suddenly

38. read over a section

39. delete a comma that i had added the day before

40. delete an adjective that i had added the day before

41. delete some other things that i had added the day before

42. go to the part that i consistently enjoy working on and write one or two sentences and add em-dash parentheticals to a few places

43. rewrite those one or two sentences for a long time

44. finally combine the two sentences into one sentence and rewrite that sentence and then finally get a really good sentence there

45. feel really good and social after writing that sentence that was really good

46. reply to some more e-mails because of feeling really good and social

47. send some e-mails to people

48. go on AOL instant messager to talk to people

49. talk to people for a while

50. use the bathroom

51. google and then technorati some of my favorite authors

52. begin to feel a little tired and uncreative

53. look at my novel

54. tell myself to spend one hour straight only working on the novel

55. acknowledge to myself that it won't happen

56. check e-mail

57. tell myself one hour starting now

58. get up to use the bathroom

59. realize that the music i have on is getting annoying

60. turn off the music

61. feel really agitated and hopeless

62. threaten myself to work on the novel or else

63. begin to read the beginning of the novel

64. realize that that sentence i thought earlier was good is derivative and not even that good and go to where it is and look at it and then delete it

65. go to 'edit' and do 'undo-delete'

66. copy the sentence and paste it at the end of the manuscript

67. go over all the 30,000 words pasted at the end of the novel that i am not going using for the novel

68. find that some of those things are really good

69. try to re-insert some of those things into the currently 10,000 word novel

70. tell myself i shouldn't trust myself to do this right now, since the coffee was a while ago and right now i won't think that anything is good, overall, no matter what, in life

71. type 'PRINT THIS OUT AND ORGANIZE IT' on the top of the manuscript

72. print it out

73. check my e-mail

74. use the bathroom

75. e-mail the novel to myself

76. read over some drafts of poems i'm working on that are in my gmail's 'drafts' section

77. work on those a little

78. read over all the sixty or so 'drafts' of e-mails that i have

79. delete some of those

80. go outside and buy another tea

81. decide to work on my novel for thirty minutes straight or else

82. download my novel

83. check e-mail

84. google myself

85. google my favorite authors

86. google my name and the names of my favorite authors

87. maximize my novel and think about screaming

88. check e-mail

89. go to amazon.com and read reviews of books by lorrie moore

etc.

also, i left out 'check how many people have visited my blog,' 'read other people's blogs and make amusing, irrelevant comments,' 'put my head down on the desk and listen to one or two songs without thinking,' and some other things

8:49 PM 20 comments

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